Just had to replace pads and rotors on 08 town and country with 23000 miles. judging by internet search, these pads and rotors are being replaced frequently. If the OEM is such poor quality, whay should I replace with Chrysler recommendation. What would you recommend for replacement rotors and pads? Raybestos? The OEM pads are semi-metallic. would ceramic wear longer and be less damaging to rotors?
Raybestos are a good bet, but don’t count on much change. The wear is also determined to a large extent by brake design, which you can’t change.
I’m not sure whether or not one can simply chalk up 23K miles brakes to quality. There is a lot in the mix. One thing is about how one drives. I could never use up pads in 23K no matter what b/c 90% of driving is on the highway. You may be doing a lot of in town driving. Another thing is just the initial thickness of things. Everything has been getting thinner as engineers try to drop weight wherever it can be dropped (this is another design issue but not about quick wear). Rotors are thinner - perhaps brake pads too. For a long time the original tires on many new cars have been skimpy and don’t wear very long - maybe the move has been toward brake pads as well. Anyway…I wouldn’t read too much of any one thing into it.
Any name brand brake parts will likely be fine - but I would stay away from the lowest grade parts no matter the brand. Using low grade brake parts will increase the odds of all manner of problems of which quick wear is not really the biggest.
You can try ceramic - but I’ve seen people report being unhappy with them if their system was really designed for semi-metallic. I have nothing solid there though.
I suggest a good brand name when choosing brake pads. I would not recommend ceramic at all since they were designed for high heat applications. I have removed far more ceramic brakes than I’ve ever installed.